What the Happy Family would have to say when they saw him, even Andy Green's vivid imagination declined to picture.
He knew by the sun that it was full noon when he came in sight of the stable and corrals, and his soul sickened at the thought of facing that derisive bunch of punchers, with their fiendish grins and their barbed tongues.

But he was hungry, and his arms had reached the limit of prickly sensations and were numb to his shoulders.

He shook his hair back from his beaded forehead, cast a wary glance at the silent stables, set his jaw, and went on up the hill to the mess-house, wishing tardily that he had waited until they were off at work again, when he might intimidate old Patsy into keeping quiet about his predicament.
Within the mess-house was the clatter of knives and forks plied by hungry men, the sound of desultory talk and a savory odor of good things to eat.

The door was closed.

Andy stood before it as a guilty-conscienced child stands before its teacher; clicked his teeth together, and, since he could not open the door, lifted his right foot and gave it a kick to strain the hinges.
Within were exclamations of astonishment, silence and then a heavy tread.